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Posts published in “Day: November 11, 2008”

WA: City and country

November 11, 2008
John Ahern

John Ahern

 John Driscoll

John Driscoll

Along with the Senate races in Alaska and Minnesota, there are a few as-yet unresolved contests in the Northwest. Maybe the premier of them is in Spokane, in legislative district 6, and it seems emblematic of a political tipping point in the Northwest.

District 6, roughly, is suburban Spokane, a U-shaped area running fro north of the city along Highways 2 and 395, west through the Riverside State Park area, the Spokane airport southwest of town, and the suburban area south of city center. It is not centrally urban, which helps a Republican, but increasingly it is densely populated and linked to the city (and a piece of it is within city limits), which would tend to help a Democrat.

In 2002, which first formed as it is now, it elected three Republicans, the best known being state Senator James West (later a mayor of Spokane), and a lawmaker still serving, John Ahern (55.8%). It again elected two Republicans to the House seat in 2004 (Ahern pulled 60.6%). But in 2006 one of those seats went to Democrat Don Barlow (who had lost in 2004), and the Senate seat went to a Democrat (Chris Marr) as well. Abruptly, Ahern was the lone Republican in this marginal district. (more…)

NW: Veterans and a presidential visit

November 11, 2008

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FRONTED The Obama/Bush visit was major everywhere, along with demand for Obama inauguration tickets . . . Veterans Day (Oregonian, Seattle Times, Spokane Spokesman Review, Tacoma News Tribune, Idaho Statesman, Eugene Register Guard, Kitsap Sun, Klamath Falls Herald and News, Moscow Daily News, and others . . . In Oregon, Governor Ted Kulongoski's transportation proposal was top regional news.

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1We have suggested for years that private prisons are trouble waiting to happen. Or maybe not waiting - catch this from the Associated Press in Boise: "Documents from the Idaho Department of Correction obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request show that from September 2007 to September 2008, there were 123 offender-on-offender assaults at the prison, which is operated by Correction Corp. of America near Boise. That compares with 42 assaults during the same period at the Idaho State Correctional Institute and 31 assaults at the Idaho Maximum Security Institute. Half all inmate assaults at prisons statewide last year occurred at ICC . . ."

2Brookings, on the far southwest coast of Oregon just north of California, turns out to be a major destination of retired veterans. A useful sociological take in the Oregonian; losses at Starbucks dominate the Seattle papers; elsewhere around Washington, a Gregoire stimulus proposal (mirroring Kulongoski's) gets attention.

3Rural economic development proposals centered around the idea of high tech as a location-severed device have sometimes seemed a little wishful. But not always. Check out this large and high-end development - a massive Amazon.com operation - way out in the small desert/farm community of Boardman.

4Not the headlines a church wants, about the kicking-out of homeless people from church property. But what was their option? Quote from the Corvallis News Gazette: “The thing I feel bad about (is) there’s just no place to send them. There’s no place where they’re really welcome to be.”

5We interviewed new Idaho Representative Walt Minnick yesterday; that was one of a number of interviews by him during the day. Here's a report on another, in the Spokane Spokesman-Review, covering some similar and some different ground.